Bringing AI to local government: GenAI Lab to support Dublin City Council

The case study presented by Trinity College Dublin demonstrates how Generative AI (Gen AI) could be implemented within local government.

Background and purpose

The development and application of AI tools, particularly GenAI, have increased significantly since the 2020s. Benefits of GenAI adoption, such as reshaping traditional workflows, enhancing service delivery, and increasing operational efficiencies, have been prevalent, and multiple case studies and academic papers have indicated how to manage challenges of GenAI adoption in the business domain. However, compared with business sectors, GenAI adoption in the public sector remains relatively underexplored. The characteristics of the public sector, such as rigid structures, formal processes, and requirements of control, are inherently in conflict with the nature of new and emerging technology such as Gen AI, including autonomy, flexibility, and risk proclivity. Therefore, the benefits and challenges of GenAI adoption in the public sector become unclear and need further investigation. At Trinity College Dublin, ADAPT Research Ireland centre partnered with Dublin City Council (DCC) to create Ireland's first local government Gen AI Lab designed to evaluate, implement, and govern ethical AI solutions for the city council.

Specifically, the key objectives of this project include:

• Identifying practical and high-value use cases for GenAI across city council services.

• Testing and learning from early-stage use cases.

• Informing procurement-ready solutions for long-term scalability.

• Embedding a culture of responsible experimentation and continuous innovation.

This project delivers explicit benefits for policymakers and organisations in the public sector by transferring existing research on GenAI from ADAPT Research expertise, Trinity College Dublin into assets that enable public service innovation through new and emerging technology.

Top image: Launch of GenAI Lab with multiple stakeholders

Impact creation in Public Sector space

The adoption of Gen AI tools within the public sector requires a structured and context-aware approach that combines the technical capabilities of these AI systems and the operational and regulatory frameworks of the local government body like Dublin City Council. This project uses a methodology that emphasizes collaboration with city council staff, whose expertise is vital in adopting new technologies that can enhance their work and improve the services offered to citizens. The different phases of the approach are described below.

• The first stage was conducting a cross-departmental ideation workshop (Feb 2025) to collect and identify potential use cases for Gen AI within daily operations of staff.

• The second stage was evaluating and prioritizing the different use cases. The team used economic, technical and operational efficiency frameworks to identify the use cases with highest impact and least challenges to development.

• The third phase was testing and development. The team developed and experimented as proof of concepts and researched upon within the lab to showcase the both short-term and long-term benefits to the council.

Specific use case 1:

The use case was the ability to do a pre-market analysis using a large language model that can assist  in drafting the tender specification. It shows how the adoption of GenAI increases the document's consistency and hence staff productivity in a short-term. As cases like this require only a minimum level of integration with the existing system and do not involve any workflow changes in the public sector, the risk of such adoption is minimal and limited, and benefits are immediate. It also helps the confidence-building of the public sector to further explore the possibility of GenAI adoption to reach long-term benefits.

Image 2: Workshop with local authority officials in Dublin

Use case 2: 

Another use case that was developed was Council Questions Assistant. This case aims at improving internal knowledge access by helping council procedures, review monthly council minutes, responding to member queries and retrieve policy or procedural documents more efficiently using Gen AI. It shows that adopting GenAI can lead to significant operational gains in public sector organizations, as city council staff will have more time to address complex issues. As GenAI tools become increasingly integrated with existing systems, the workflow in public organizations will become more streamlined, leading to longer-lasting benefits. However, this integration also brings higher risks, since the distinctive characteristics of the public sector can clash with the nature of GenAI. For instance, the accuracy of GenAI outputs depends heavily on the quality of input data, which poses a challenge for public sector bodies that must comply with strict regulations such as the EU AI Act and GDPR—rules that can limit the type and quality of data available to train GenAI systems.

In summary, the case study demonstrates that the integration of Gen AI within local government services is both an opportunity and a challenge. The findings suggest that effective GenAI adoption depends on balancing innovation with accountability, ensuring that technological implementation aligns with legal, regulatory, and ethical expectations of the local government. This research contributes to bridging the persistent gap between academic AI exploration and real-world public service delivery, advancing understanding of how Gen AI can responsibly augment institutional capacity. As the lab progresses, future research will focus on developing models that are grounded to the local government’s data in order to assess long-term impacts, scalability, and the governance mechanisms required to embed emerging technologies like GenAI as a trusted partner in the service delivery.